Manually operated rotary switches are commonly used to select and display electronically coded data which is to be input into a computer or other electronic data utilization system. These electromechanical devices may be arranged in a parallel set or sequence to represent the various decimal powers of a digital or numeric quantity selected.
A modern variation on the electromechanical rotary switch is disclosed in the patent to Sottile U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,328 wherein data selection or programming is accomplished by inserting ones finger into an opening in a panel thereby to break a photoelectric connection and gate clock pulses into a counter. The counter, in turn, operates encoder/driver logic to provide a digital display of the segmented numeric type.
However, no prior art device is responsive to manual contact directly with the face of the display element to program new data for display. Contact responsive switches are, of course, well known, but are not shown in the prior art to be combined with a programmable display capability which sequences or alters the selected data at a clock rate simply by maintaining contact with the display face.